


Someone I Love (Threw Me Away)

by orphan_account



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Jealousy, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Projekt Revolution, Stage Gay, and backstage gay, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:03:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7706953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having frequent sex with your best friend seems like all fun and games until he goes and falls in love with someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I know Bob was on this tour and Mikey wasn't but Mikey > Bob so that's that. There will also be lots of swearing particularly of the 'what the fuck' variety, and I love Lindsey so almost nothing said in this fic is my genuine opinion.

Frank really doesn’t like driving. It’s not like, an intense hatred, or anything, but he’s not one of those people that can just be happy driving for hours; it just makes him feel short and he gets bored within five minutes flat if no one’s in the car with him, and can hardly stand to pay attention for as long as it usually takes to get somewhere. But Gerard and Mikey live too far away to walk in the sticky heat of the Jersey summer, so he’s suffering for the sake of getting to see them before they all have to catch a flight tonight. Mostly to actually _remind_ them they’re getting on a plane tonight, because they’re both too spacey to even remember to pack fucking clean underwear for the couple of months they’ll be gone, and it’s already bad enough dealing with the Way stink on tour when it’s _cold_ out, let alone when the sky is literally fucking melting. Fucking July.

Projekt revolution, Frank can’t fucking believe it. He’s so looking forward to this tour, partly because he’s hardly hung out with the guys for like the last month because they’d been on tour since fucking February and all just hibernated for a month to prepare for the fact that after this tour they’ll have, like, one more month before they’re back on tour for another eight months, but mostly because – even after six years – he still can’t believe he’s part of his favourite fucking band. Ever since Frank was younger, ever since he started playing in bands as a kid, he knew all he wanted to do was be in a band. He’d constantly be joining or starting or being a temporary sort-of-half-member in as many bands as he could, in the hope that one day, one of them would make it and he’d finally get to live out his dream. The first time any of his bands actually got kind of serious, was with Pencey Prep. They recorded in a real fucking studio and everything. Ironically, when his dream actually showed the first few glimmers of coming true, was the first time he doubted it. Sure, he had doubted it in the way that every now and then he’d see someone doing something or talking about their job, and be like “huh, I wonder what that’d be like,” but he’d never actually _doubted_ it. Until they started recording their first album, of course.

Frank’s always loved playing, and performing, and everything about music, which is where his dream started in the first place (that, and the huge influence from just about everyone in his dad’s family being some kind of musician). But then, once they got into the studio, he started to doubt everything. At first he thought maybe it was just because it was slow; recording would be tedious and boring and he’d spend hours trying to get just one bit and then have days of not doing anything while other parts were recorded. But he couldn’t stop that other doubt in his mind, the tiny, nagging voice that would appear whenever you wanted to believe in something but your brain decided to just do its own thing and convince you otherwise. That voice would tell him that this wasn’t _it_. That big dream that he’d been looking for, waiting for, working towards in most of his free time, it wasn’t what he wanted. Because there wasn’t that _magic_ there. As childish as it sounded, Frank knew what he was looking for, he knew there should be this _click_ , and that he’d _know_ when this was going to be something big. That didn’t happen with Pencey Prep, and soon – after they’d released their first album – they just drifted apart and decided to call it quits. Not before Frank got the chance to meet Gerard, though. Well, Gerard and the other guys that would hang out in shitty basements with greasy hair and weird ideas for fashion, and somehow managed to scrape together enough to form a band. Frank knew straight away when he first met them that they were his people, so he was more than willing to help them get gigs and sneak them into their studio to record.

When he first heard the guys play, he knew they’d be his favourite fucking band. Probably for the rest of his damn life. Which is why, after Pencey had disintegrated and Frank had taken to just following around the newly named My Chem, and they asked him if he wanted to play guitar for them, his brain pretty much imploded just with the feeling of ‘holy shit’ and he still hasn’t recovered. He’s made three fucking albums with them and he still hasn’t recovered.

Frank doesn’t even bother knocking on the Way’s front door, because no one ever fucking answers it anyway, so he goes round to the side door instead. Mikey had given him the only spare key they had a couple of years ago after Frank may have kind of attempted to break into their house. Again.

“Oh, hey there Frankie,” Mrs Way says without even looking up, sitting at the kitchen table flipping through some magazine, “Mikey’s out right now, he’ll be back soon but Gerard’s downstairs.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Frank replies, and he isn’t even gonna deny that he feels pleased with the smile she gives him; he’ll never not be jealous of Gerard and Mikey for having such a cool mom that let them do whatever the fuck they wanted when they were teenagers.

“Say hi to Linda for me!” She calls out after Frank, as he’s going down the stairs to Gerard’s hobbit hole.

Gerard’s not facing the door when Frank comes in, he’s just hunched over one of his desk drawers, digging through it and mumbling something to himself, which Frank instantly sees as a golden fucking opportunity. He doesn’t think before he runs across the room and launches himself at Gerard’s back, hooking his legs round his waist and his arms round his neck, yelling “Surprise motherfucker!” probably way too loud in Gerard’s ear.

“Oh, fuck,” Gerard says, stumbling backwards and almost making to push Frank off but just sighs instead, “fuck, Frank.”

“D’ya miss me?” Frank asks, still clinging on tight, which is hard when Gerard has no fucking balance whatsoever and is so close to falling back on top of Frank, and isn’t even doing anything to try and fix it.

“I didn’t miss being fucking attacked,” Gerard says, “Jesus Christ, I think you gave me heart failure.”

“Whoops,” Frank says, moving his legs round until he can twist his whole body round Gerard, so they’re facing each other instead, and Frank has a brief moment of hypersensitivity in regards to his crotch pressed against Gerard’s stomach, but he crushes that thought quickly. It’s not like Gerard would be weirded out if Frank got a boner, he can hardly complain when he’s been up close and personal with it before, but if he’s gonna he’s got to at least fucking warm up to it. “Sorry.”

“Fucking hell,” Gerard says, grabbing onto the desk with one hand and Frank’s back with the other, _finally_ getting his balance, “how do you do this shit?”

Frank shrugs, “Come on,” he says, kind of shoving Gerard’s shoulders, which doesn’t work very well when they’re still attached, “I wanna sit,” he explains, shoving him again in the direction of the bed.

“Okay, okay,” Gerard huffs, just stumbling backwards until he hits the bed and falls back on it, because he’s a fucking idiot and doesn’t think things through to put Frank down first so he doesn’t get his chest crushed and a chin to his forehead.

“Ow, now you’ve given me a concussion too,” Gerard says as they disentangle themselves from one another.

“You gave that to yourself,” Frank says, laying back on the bed to look up at the ceiling, and Gerard sits up a bit so he can look at Frank, “you didn’t think to put me down first.”

Gerard sighs, “Still,” he says, and Frank can all but hear the pout.

Neither of them make any move to sit up, so they just kind of lie there for a bit, and Frank can’t help but laugh when he looks over and sees Gerard fucking lying on his side with his head rested on his elbow.

“What?”

“You look like you about to ask fucking Leonardo DiCaprio to paint you,” Frank explains, and Gerard rolls his eyes, but he’s not exactly hiding his smile, so he’s counting that as a point towards Great Jokes Frank Has Made.

“I missed you,” Gerard says, still smiling, and Frank’s just noticed how close he is, kind of leaning over Frank and looking down at him.

“Yeah?” Frank asks, and Gerard’s face goes serious, nodding sincerely.

They don’t say anything after that, so Frank just stays lying there, staring at Gerard’s face like a fucking freak, and maybe focusing too much attention on his lips. He’s just considering the logistics of how to lean up to kiss him without fucking up his neck when Gerard leans down, all slowly so Frank can see it coming in like fucking slow motion until their lips are touching. The kiss is gentle and slow and soft in a way it never is and it’s like they’re married and have all the fucking time in the world, which makes Frank’s heart ache in a way he doesn’t quite understand.

“Fuck, I’ve fucking missed you,” someone says, and Frank only realises it’s him when Gerard replies with a, “shut the fuck up and let me kiss you.”

That’s when the kiss speeds up, passionate and deep, back into familiar territory, and when Gerard falls back against the bed, he pulls Frank with him, so he ends up with his knees on either side of Gerard’s waist, his back kind of hunched up because he’s way too focused on the kiss to think about moving his legs down. But, then that would give Frank’s crotch better access to Gerard’s crotch and he’s _just_ about to act on that thought when he hears Mikey come in and yell out a random jumble of vowels and swear words.

“Jesus fucking Christ I was out for literally five minutes and you guys are already having sex?”

“We were just kissing,” Gerard says once he and Frank have separated themselves, both sitting on the edge of the bed, and Frank feels his heart swell at how cute Gerard looks, his voice small and his ducked head doing nothing to hide the dark blush high on his cheeks.

“Just cause you’ve never seen it yourself…” Frank adds.

“Oh my god, Frank,” Mikey says, sitting on the edge of Gerard’s desk, “you’re such a child.”

“Hey, I’m, like, almost 26. I’m basically the same age as you.”

“Doesn’t mean you act like it.”

Frank rolls his eyes, pushing himself off the edge of the bed to sit on the floor instead, because cross-legged is way more comfortable than just having your legs hang awkwardly. He kind of spontaneously kisses Gerard on the cheek as he stands up, and Gerard smiles down at his lap, his cheeks going pink again, making Frank insides twist. It’s like they’re a fucking couple, what the fuck. “Are you guys ready?”

“For what?” Gerard and Mikey ask in sync and it makes them sound like fucking twins.

“The fucking tour, dumbass,” Frank says, hitting Gerard’s shin. “What’s the plural of dumbass?”

Mikey shrugs, as Gerard groans, “That means we have to get a flight tonight.”

“See, this is why I had to fucking come over to make sure we weren’t all waiting at the airport for you two idiots.”

“We might’ve noticed, like, eventually,” Mikey says, and even he doesn’t sound like he believes himself.

“Yeah, maybe when me and Ray were fucking enjoying having two seats each.”

“Maybe we were just being awesome friends,” Gerard says.

Frank rolls his eyes, “You guys are weirdos,” he says, standing up, because even though he wishes he could hang out and put Mikey and Gerard’s insane movie collection to good use, he has way too much shit to do and his mom would give him way too much shit if he didn’t at least spend a bit of time with her before he left, “but as amazing guitarists as me and Toro are, I don’t think we could manage with out a singer or a bass player.”

“Just a whole set of guitar solos,” Gerard says, sounding kind of airy, which means he’s not even present in the moment anymore and his brain’s just drifted off thinking about other things, “that’d be cool.”

“We’d actually have a decent smelling bus,” Frank adds, trying not to laugh when Mikey makes a face at him that isn’t really a _face_ , but Frank’s known him for long enough to recognise the difference between Mikey’s emotionless monotone and his slightly-different-emotion monotone.

“See you tonight,” Mikey says, and Gerard doesn’t even say anything, which Frank didn’t expect anyway because whatever the fuck he said triggered some train of thought that sent him off to Gerard-land. Just as Franks going upstairs, he can faintly hear Mikey saying, “What the hell was that about? You and Frank aren’t usually…” before he’s out of earshot. Frank can’t even bring himself to care, because of the warm bubbling in his stomach that has a little too much to do with Gerard and not enough of an explanation for.


	2. Chapter 2

The flight is short, at least, compared to some of the cross-country flights they’ve had to do before that left them all like zombies almost unable to play within a week after. The plane is a small one, just with two seats either side of the aisle, so the four of them have a row to themselves, Mikey and Ray on one side, and Frank and Gerard on the other. Frank claimed the window seat straight away, with no objections from Gerard, and is for once thankful for being short, because it means he can sit in any fucking position he wants. Sure, he’s not the most flexible guy in the world, but his small legs allow him to be able to curl up or cross his legs or whatever the hell he wants. Right now, he’s sitting sideways, using the wall behind him as a back support/super solid pillow (why else would anyone want a window seat?), his feet up on the chair in front of him where he’d kicked the arm rest up so there was more space for his knees, which Gerard totally started leaning against after they’d taken off.

Frank’s trying to sleep, because otherwise he knows he’ll be messed up the next couple of days what with the three-hour time difference, but he’s really struggling despite normally always being able to sleep, and having the scarf he stole off of Gerard as a kind-of pillow.

Maybe it’s cause his feet are cold, Frank thinks, because they are kind of like little ice blocks despite his socks and the fact that it’s not even that cold on the plane. Gerard’s legs are right there, so he can’t help but to shove his toes under Gerard’s thighs in the hopes of warmth, but then Gerard squeaks, jumping off the seat a little. He turns to look at Frank, a blush forming high on his cheeks, and Frank gives him the biggest smile he can.

“Ugh,” Frank says when Gerard turns back to his phone, leaning forward to slam his forehead into Gerard’s shoulder. The position isn’t comfortable; he has to lean forward too much and his thighs feel too strained having to both hold his knees up _and_ bring his torso forward, but it’s necessary. For emphasis. “I can’t sleep.”

“Yes you fucking can,” Gerard says, not looking up from his phone, “you can sleep anywhere. You _always_ sleep anywhere.”

“I know, but I can’t _now_.”

“Why not?” Gerard asks, moving his phone away and looking up, trying to turn to the side as if he’s trying to see Frank’s face, even though it’s half smushed into his shoulder.

“Dunno,” Frank says, turning his body round so he’s actually facing forward, going for elegant but ending up hitting his toes on the chair in front and almost getting his other foot stuck underneath himself. And elbowing Gerard in the ribs. “Sorry,” Frank says, resting his cheek on Gerard’s shoulder, “what’re you doing?”

“Reading a comic,” Gerard says, briefly lifting up his phone as if to show Frank, even though the screen’s dark now.

“On your _phone_?”

“I had to download some, cause I didn’t wanna wreck them in my bag.”

“You could solve that problem if you, you know, packed your bag like a normal person and didn’t just shove everything in to get destroyed.”

Gerard shrugs, forgetting about Frank’s fucking _head_ , which he can do sometimes because he’s like, fucking…ditsy. Frank’s mom would hate him using that word, but it’s honestly the only way he can describe it; Gerard’s somehow the smartest person he knows and yet the stupidest too. Like, clumsy but not in a clumsy way. He and Mikey are the same, except Gerard’s just kind of forgetful, which makes him clumsy because he’ll just forget where he is or what he’s doing and it’ll make him do something stupid or inappropriate, which is probably because of how fucking genius he is; he’d probably be thinking some deep-ass thoughts about cars or whatever and then forget that he’s supposed to be steering one. Mikey, on the other hand, is kind of like oblivious clumsy, because he has no common sense. He’ll just not realise there’s a fucking staircase and then fall flat on his face, or not put two and two together and realise that electricity and water don’t mix.

Gerard remembers Frank’s head a moment later, when it slams down against his shoulder, fucking _painfully_ , and he immediately brings his hand up to rest on the side of Frank’s head, like if he keeps him secure now, it’ll undo the fact that he just shook Frank’s fucking brain inside his head.

“Shit,” Gerard says as his hand comes into contact with Frank’s head, the bottom of his palm just touching Frank’s cheek, his fingers slipping into Frank’s hair, “sorry.”

“ _Ow_ , motherfucker,” Frank says, but he’s not complaining because now Gerard’s gently stroking Frank’s cheek as he moves his hand down, which is weirdly comforting, and it sends a shiver down Frank’s spine when his fingertips drift over Frank’s jawline and onto his neck, feeling it throughout his whole body, until in centres in his stomach, in a weird way that Frank doesn’t want to think about because it feels _good_ , but with a hint of dread because _why the fuck does that feel that good_?

“Is that my scarf?” Gerard asks when his hand touches it, even though Frank’s been wearing it for fucking _hours_ , right after he took it out of Gerard’s backpack, right off his fucking back, while they were walking through the airport.

“Dude,” Frank says, “you could so get pickpocketed.”

“I could so fight off a pickpocket.”

“Yeah, sure, only if you could realise they’re fucking stealing from you.”

“Shut up,” Gerard says, but Frank can pretty much hear his smile.

“Do you have any music?” Frank asks, because he doesn’t feel like reading comics over Gerard’s shoulder, plus, Gerard’s weird about that anyway, so he might as well do _something_.

“Yeah,” Gerard says, trying and failing to wedge his hand into the pocket of his skin-tight jeans to get out his headphones, so he ends up half sliding down his seat and lifting his hips up, basically fucking _thrusting_ , and, okay, sure, they have sex but they don’t have so much sex that even _that_ makes Frank interested, and yet here he is. “Got them,” Gerard says with a grin, holding them up triumphantly and dropping his ass back onto the seat where it belongs.

“Awesome,” Frank says, taking the bud Gerard holds out for him and sticking it in his ear, watching at Gerard fumbles with his phone to get everything plugged in and to actually find something to play.

“I’ve missed you,” Frank says, because that _must_ be why he’s feeling so weird with Gerard, because they have hardly seen each other for what feels like forever, and they’re normally always touching and clinging onto each other, so it’s probably just because it’s weird because they haven’t been for ages. It _must_ be. It hasn’t even been ages, but it _feels_ like ages. It counts.

“Huh?” Gerard asks, managing to pull out both of their headphones, because Frank somehow coincided with the music starting because he’s a fucking idiot.

“I missed you,” Frank repeats, and Gerard ducks his head, most definitely smiling to himself and it makes Frank’s heart flutter. What the fuck. “It feels like we haven’t just _hung out_ in ages.”

“We only got off tour, like, three weeks ago. Maybe,” Gerard says, “how can a month feel like that long?”

“I know,” Frank says, picking up the headphones again and sticking one in, handing the other to Gerard, letting the sound of David Bowie _finally_ help him to sleep.

***

Frank actually sleeps for the rest of the flight, and wakes up to Gerard kind of poking his face and whispering his name over and over.

“See, you did sleep,” Gerard says when Frank finally opens his eyes, right in front of his face, and it takes Frank a moment of confusion to realise that’s because Frank’s somehow fucking turned in his sleep, not because Gerard had done some weird acrobatics so that he was in front of Frank and sitting next to him.

“Mmm,” Frank groans, the feeling of too little sleep already setting in.

“I was gonna try convince Ray to carry you off the plane cause you looked so cute,” and cue Frank’s heart doing fuck knows what because it’s suddenly decided to be weird about everything his fucking best friend – who he’s known for _years_ – does, out of fucking nowhere, “but I didn’t think the crew would let us.”

“If only,” Frank manages, standing up and his stomach totally doesn’t do flips when he has to grab onto Gerard’s shoulder for support when he gets a head rush. Another thing to add to the pile of ‘weird things that Frank feels around Gerard that have never happened before and he’s never going to think about ever’.

***

“I had this dream, a couple days ago,” Gerard says, passing his cigarette to Frank. They’re stuck waiting on a bench outside some gas station, because there was some scheduling error which meant their bus wasn’t fucking _here_ (which Brian apologised for over the phone, like, at least a hundred times, because he’s the kind of guy that wants to take responsibility for _everything_ , both in the sense that he wants to manage everything and he wants to take the blame for everything that goes wrong), so they took a taxi to the nearest gas station to escape from the horror of the airport pick-up. Ray and Mikey are both inside trying to find some decent food or something, so Gerard and Frank are just left sharing a cigarette, because Frank left his pack in his bag and Gerard only has one on him, what the fuck.

“Why the fuck do you only have one cigarette?” Frank asks, even though they were already over halfway through it by now, taking the cigarette and relishing the long drag he takes.

Gerard shrugs, “It was scary, man.”

“More vampires?” Frank asks. He’ll never get tired of hearing about Gerard’s dreams because that guy has the weirdest imagination possible.

Gerard shakes his head, taking the cigarette back, “You died.”

“Don’t I die, like, a bunch of the time?”

“Well, yeah, but this was different. It was _real_.”

“Dude, every dream you have is real as shit.”

“I know, but this was, like, normal. You didn’t get killed by vampires or werewolves or spiders and you didn’t go down fighting in some stupidly heroic but horrifically idiotic way. You just _died_ , and it was so un-you.”

Frank doesn’t know what to say, honestly, and he stays in silence for a minute, contemplating it; now that Gerard’s brought it up he can’t imagine himself dying in any other way, he doesn’t _want_ to die in any other way. He wants some badass death where he saved everyone else.

“It was _horrible_ , Frankie,” Gerard says when Frank still doesn’t make any contribution, stubbing out their cigarette.

“Why? Cause I didn’t die in some awesomely heroic way? I gotta say I’d be pretty disappointed.”

“I mean, that bit was annoying, but the rest of it was like…you just got sick, and no one thought anything of it,” Gerard says, which is fair enough because Frank is _always fucking sick_ , “but then it just got worse and worse until you were _gone_. And I wasn’t there and then it was too late and I couldn’t- there were so many things that I wanted to-”

“Hey,” Frank interrupts, hearing the ‘I’m about to break down’ in Gerard’s voice and wanting to avoid it at all costs because that’s no fucking way to start a tour, and he hates seeing Gerard in any form of distress because then he gets upset too and it’s all just a mess, “I’m still here, and alive.”

Gerard sighs, deep and full of relief, as if he wasn’t entirely sure until Frank clarified it, “Please don’t…” he starts, trailing off and looking down, staring at Frank’s hand resting on the bench between them for a couple of seconds before taking it with his, interlacing their fingers and squeezing tight, like he’s afraid Frank might disappear right in front of him, “please don’t ever die. Promise me you won’t.”

“I promise,” Frank says, only sounding half-there, too busy staring at their hands, because they didn’t _do_ this. Okay, sure, they cuddled and held hands and kissed and had fucking sex like every male friendship didn’t, but this felt different. Or maybe Frank felt different. He couldn’t tell, and he wanted to say something to Gerard, because it wasn’t like he normally kept his opinion quiet, but somehow this felt like it _should_ be kept quiet. Which Frank doesn’t like in the slightest and it gives him some weird, not quiet sickly, falling feeling in the pit of his stomach. More fucking weird feelings about Gerard that Frank really can’t keep attributing to the fact that he missed him.

“Seriously, Frank,” Gerard says, squeezing Frank’s hand tighter, bringing him back again and the weird feeling almost leaves his stomach; it kind of, retreats to the back instead. “I woke up, like, crying, and it took Mikey ages to calm me down. You know what it was like with Elena and if you…”

“Gerard,” Frank says, all stern and serious-like, “I’m not gonna die just cause you had a dream, okay? You’re not psychic, no matter how awesome that’d be.”

“Yeah,” Gerard says, staring off into the distance, then shaking his head like he’s trying to clear it. He always seems to do that and Frank only finds it more and more endearing every time, “yeah,” he repeats, clarifying it to himself, then shuffles down the bench a bit so he can rest his head on Frank’s shoulder, and, fuck, the weird feeling comes back again, front and centre in full force. Frank squeezes Gerard’s hand, resting his head on top of Gerard’s and trying to ignore the growing pit of weirdness and confusion in his stomach, praying that he can avoid confronting whatever the fuck it is for at least the rest of forever.


	3. Chapter 3

“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Gerard says when the bus arrives, standing up to do absolutely nothing but watch while they all load their shit up. “I don’t actually have any instruments, though,” he says with a grin when Frank complains.

“Just cause you’re the singer doesn’t mean we can’t leave you behind,” Frank tells him, “or throw you off the fucking bus.”

“You love me really,” Gerard says, his annoying fucking grin still spread over his face, but then he goes and helps Mikey with something way too big for someone that probably weighs all of sixty pounds.

They hardly even speak when they get on the bus, just all go straight to their bunks and fall asleep, because it’s some fucking insane time in the morning and none of them have had anywhere near enough sleep. Frank’s pretty sure he goes into a mini coma. He wouldn’t wake up for a fucking car crash. Instead, he’s the car crash that wakes Gerard up a couple of hours later by jumping into his bunk and probably elbowing and kneeing him in some uncomfortable places, but it does the job and he’s blinking up at Frank with the confused look of ‘why am I waking up with a small man climbing on me’ that everyone in the band seems to have mastered.

“Fresh coffee,” is all it takes to give Gerard the willpower to get out of bed, and as soon as Frank’s climbed off of him he’s zombie-shuffling along behind him.

“Why are you so awake,” Gerard says, not even like a question, just some half-asleep statement, “did you have coffee already?”

Frank shakes his head, “Just ready to kick this tour’s fucking ass.”

“I swear you have fucking caffeine glands, or something.”

“Oh, man, I wish,” Frank says, just picturing it. He should get Gerard to draw some anatomical shit. “That’d be so cool.”

Frank hands Gerard one of the coffees he poured out, taking one for himself and sitting down with Ray and Mikey where they already have coffees for themselves.

“Are you ready for the most tiring hours of the tour?” Ray asks, staring down into his coffee with a look Frank is sure he stole from his mom, one that says ‘why isn’t this a bucket’.

“I need more coffee,” Mikey answers.

“Huh?” Gerard asks, pretty much summarising Frank’s thoughts.

“You two,” Ray says, which just confuses Frank more.

“What’s wrong with us?”

“Well _you_ get fucking hyper for, like, the first couple hours,” Mikey says, “so you make Gerard fucking hyper too.”

“Are we that bad?” Gerard asks, already looking more awake and less like a zombie, more towards a coma patient on the scale of deathliness.

“Yes,” both Ray and Mikey say, and some of Ray’s motherliness has to be rubbing off on Mikey because he’s adopted the tired-mom-of-four look too.

“You guys are such fucking buzzkills,” Frank says, downing the rest of his coffee in one. But they’re not wrong, because Frank and Gerard totally end up being most likely annoying as fuck when they start playing music as loud as possible. Frank does some undeniably awesome spontaneous dance moves that makes him realise he could never not have kids, because he’d be fucking outstanding at embarrassing them. It doesn’t even take any persuading to get Gerard to join him, and he’s in no way a better dancer than Frank, but there’s no doubt about the fact that he looks better doing it. He’s got the hip moves fucking _down_ , and Frank pretends to be completely unaffected by it when they get close, Gerard’s hands on his hips fucking _moving them for him_ , like they’re dancing in some sleazy club that Gerard’s probably never even stepped in, let alone danced in. They end up slow dancing somehow when some British band Gerard put on starts singing some slow song about loneliness, which is about as far from how Frank’s feeling right now, and it really doesn’t do anything to calm down the freaking out in Frank’s brain that’s been going on non-stop since Gerard’s hand first touched Frank’s hip.

“Come on,” Gerard says when the song finishes, keeping hold of Frank’s hand and dragging him until they both collapse onto the seats.

“Are you guys finally finished?” Mikey asks, appearing out of nowhere because he’s a fucking ghost, “Or are you gonna, like, put on dirty dancing next? Cause I’d actually wanna see that,” he says, looking the two of them up and down, making Frank super aware of the hand still holding Gerard’s. He’s pretty sure Mikey and Gerard are having some psychic brother conversation that Frank has no clue about, so he doesn’t even try and attempt to read their expressions like he does half the time, and just focuses on catching his breath instead, because dancing is fucking _exhausting_.

“It’s okay, Mikes,” Gerard says, and whenever he does that it makes it even more infuriating that Frank can’t read their minds, because Gerard will always just say shit to Mikey with no fucking context, but Mikey always actually gets it because they have brotherly telepathy or whatever.

Mikey looks doubtful, which makes Frank even more curious, because if Mikey’s worrying about Gerard then _something_ must be going on.

“What was that about?” Frank asks when Mikey gives up and goes back to wherever and whatever he was doing.

Gerard shrugs, and says “It’s nothing,” which is such fucking bullshit and they both know it, but Frank doesn’t push, as much as he wants to, because Gerard never keeps anything secret so he’ll try and respect this and just hope he knows what it is before anything happens. “Dancing is fucking tiring,” Gerard adds. He’s still holding onto Frank’s hand, and not showing any signs of letting go, which gives Frank’s heart a little flutter. Just another thing on the list of weird feelings Gerard has given him in, like, the last day.

“Is it appropriate to have a nap before midday?”

“Anytime is appropriate for a nap,” Gerard says, and that’s why he’s the smartest guy Frank knows.

“You’re the smartest guy I know,” Frank says, and he’s sure Gerard’s rolling his eyes. Sometimes he and Mikey and so undeniably related.

***

When Frank wakes up he’s completely tangled up with Gerard and he tries not to think about the feeling it gives him in his heart or stomach or whatever the fuck. He wants to get up to make some new coffee, and maybe take a piss, but Gerard’s face is pressed against his neck, his nose completely squashed into Frank’s skin, and Frank _really_ can’t bring himself to move. He watches Gerard for a while, taking in the way his dark eyelashes resting on his cheeks, his tangle of black hair that he’s started to grow out again resting feather-light across his forehead and cheekbones, the soft sigh of his breathing and the heat of it against Frank’s neck, his pulse jumping against Gerard’s lips where they only just brush the skin of Frank’s neck.

After a while Frank’s bladder is starting to yell at him internally, and he realises that the staring is probably reaching creepy levels of crossing the line of friendship. “Gee,” Frank says quietly, running his fingers through some of the hair at the back of Gerard’s head, and he lets out this low, drawn-out groan that’s practically a fucking _moan_ , and Frank’s very much tempted to punch himself in the face, “Gee, wake up.”

“Hmm?” Gerard hums, lifting his head up quickly, head-butting Frank in the side of his jaw – _ow_ – and blinking down at him in confusion.

“Motherfucker,” Frank says, rubbing at his jaw.

“Oh, sorry,” Gerard says, smiling sheepishly, rubbing some of the sleep out of his eyes.

“Is it just your goal to accidentally hurt me as much as possible in one day?”

“If it’s accidentally though then it can’t be a goal, cause I’d have to be, like, consciously deciding to.”

“Shut up. Smartass.” Frank says, pushing himself upright, “You have to make me coffee, to make up for damaging my head _twice_ ,” he tells Gerard, getting up to _finally_ go to the toilet.

Gerard rolls his eyes, but gets up towards the coffee machine anyway.

***

“Gerard,” Frank says, vibrating after his, like, third fucking coffee and wanting to jump off the fucking walls. He sends a telepathic fuck you to Ray and Mikey. “Gerard. Geraaaard.”

“Mmm-hmm?” Gerard replies, not even looking up from his drawing. Or writing; Gerard’s handwriting is just a fast, messy scrawl so it pretty much looks the same as when he’s drawing.

“Gerard,” Frank repeats, “come on, I’m so fucking bored,” he says, all but falling off of the couch, landing heavily on his knees. Fucking _ow_. He kind of shuffles on his knees over to where Gerard’s sitting. “Gee.”

“What the fuck,” Gerard says when he finally looks up, or looks down, is more accurate, “stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Fucking…” Gerard says waving his hand around in front of Frank’s face as if that clears anything up for him, “this. Being all…gorgeous and your fucking _knees_.”

“Oh,” Frank says, praying Gerard doesn’t notice how fucking red he goes just because Gerard’s called him gorgeous. He does shit like that all the time, it shouldn’t make Frank feel all weird and like a damn _teenage_ _girl_ like it is now. “What’re you drawing?” Frank asks, playing with the seam on the outside of Gerard’s jeans, making Gerard shiver before Frank even realises he can even feel it through his jeans.

“Frank…” Gerard whines, “fuck, I’m already thinking about the first hotel night.”

“It’s still, like, two fucking weeks.”

“I know, fuck,” Gerard sighs, “you should’ve stayed longer yesterday.”

“So we could’ve lived up to Mikey’s expectations?”

“Hell fucking yeah.”

“We might as well be fucking teenagers again,” Frank sighs, pulling himself up to sit next to Gerard, “not being able to even have sex when we want.”

“You say that like you were _actually_ having sex when you were a teenager,” Gerard says, with a stupid fucking cheesy smile, and doesn’t dodge fast enough to avoid it when Frank hits him in the chest.

“You can’t talk. You were probably, like, a complete fucking hermit because you still fucking are.”

“Yeah, but I went to college,” Gerard says, smile only getting bigger, because Frank’s always the one teasing him, so when it’s actually the other way round, Gerard gets smug as hell.

“You can still be a hermit in college.”

“ _Art school_ , Frank,” Gerard says, just making Frank roll his eyes, which, of course, makes Gerard smile even bigger.

“Ugh, shut up.” Frank says, “I’ve been _engaged_. I’ve had tons of sex.”

Gerard frowns, looking at him weirdly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Gerard-”

“No, seriously,” Gerard interrupts, “you didn’t talk to any of us about it. It’s only been a few weeks and you guys were _serious_.”

“I know,” Frank says, miserably, really, _really_ not wanting to think about what Jamia had said when she’d broken off the engagement, because it’s probably most likely the reason Frank’s feeling so fucking _weird_ with Gerard now.

“Talk to me,” Gerard says, seriously.

“Can we just forget about it?” Frank asks, praying that Gerard won’t push, “What’re you doing?”

Gerard makes a weird noise, shutting his sketchbook and pushing it away before Frank can get a chance to look at it.

“Oh come on, what is it?” Frank asks, actually curious now, reaching forward but being stopped by Gerard’s hand wrapping round his wrist.

“Don’t,” he whines, looking at Frank with wide, pleading eyes.

“Come on,” Frank repeats, shaking off Gerard’s hand, and he doesn’t struggle anymore so Frank takes that as permission to pull the sketchbook back in front of them, flipping through it to find the most recent page.

Frank doesn’t know what to say. It’s not like Gerard’s never drawn him, he draws him all the time – when they spend months at a time on a bus with all the same people you’d start to run out of subjects if you refused to draw your friends – but of all the drawings Gerard’s shown him of himself, none of them have ever been like this. Gerard normally draws in a comic style, all bold lines and colour and making Frank look like someone badass that hunts vampires on the weekend. He’ll sometimes draw realistically, but they’re normally only rough sketches that Gerard spends five minutes on before he moves onto something else. When Frank asked him why he doesn’t do more of them or spend more time on them he just shrugged it off and said that he gets bored of just drawing what he sees and prefers to add their character and personality to the drawing. Gerard had been drawing pretty much since they both woke up for the second time and now Frank’s staring speechlessly at an amazingly detailed drawing of himself where he’d been sitting, some rough detail for his shoulders and chest, the vague marks of his tattoos, but most of the detail being focused on his face – the shape of his eyes and nose and mouth, the way his hair rests across his forehead and cheeks and almost touches his shoulders. It’s not just the detail that leaves Frank speechless; there’s something _about_ the drawing that Frank can’t even describe, some wordless quality that reawakens that feeling in the pit of Frank’s stomach and blooms through his chest.

When Frank looks up, Gerard’s face has flushed a hot red and he avoids meeting Frank’s eyes.

“Dude,” Frank says, “this is amazing.”

“I feel like a creep,” Gerard says, eyes flicking up to meet Frank’s and then darting away again, “staring at you this whole time to draw you without telling you.”

Frank wishes he felt uncomfortable knowing Gerard’s been staring at him this whole time, but it just makes the feeling in his chest burn stronger, “If you’d told me I’d have just made some weird-ass expression without even meaning to. Can I keep this?”

“What?” Gerard asks, genuinely shocked, finally meeting Frank’s eyes to frown at him.

“It’s awesome. Can I keep it?”

“Uh,” Gerard says, still frowning at Frank, like he’s searching his face for any signs of joking, “yeah, sure.”

“I kinda don’t wanna ruin your sketchbook,” Frank says when he goes to rip it out.

“No, man, it’s fine, I rip shit out all the time,” Gerard says, finally acting normal, his face returning back to it’s typical Gerard paleness.

“Awesome, thanks,” Frank says, ripping it out carefully and tucking it into a book he left on the table earlier, just in time for Ray to come in, looking like he’s just woken up.

“Wanna watch a movie?” he asks, attempting and failing to flatten down some of his hair.

“Only if it’s a good one,” Gerard says.

“Only if we don’t let Gerard choose,” Frank says when Ray looks at him, just to get the look of betrayal Gerard gives him, making him laugh as he follows both of them to the back of the bus.


	4. Chapter 4

The late July heat is the worst part about the first show; all it takes is a couple of songs before Frank’s dripping in sweat, and by the time they finish their set he’s pretty sure 90% of the liquid in his body is now soaking his clothes instead, and he says a silent prayer for him and Ray and the rest of the crew. Having to deal with Mikey and Gerard’s smell is bad enough anyway, let alone when they’re all sweating worse than normal every day.

“That was awesome,” Mikey says as they walk offstage together, beaming as they both hand off their guitars.

“Damn right,” Frank says, feeling like he could take on the world, buzzing with energy, the feeling thrumming through him like electricity coursing through his veins.

“It was the high fives, man,” Mikey grins, shaking out his sweaty hair, “the high fives _never_ fail.” Frank just rolls eyes, spotting Ray and Gerard coming round the corner and thanking whatever almighty forces there are that they’re walking close enough next to each other so that he can tackle them both at the same time, listening to Mikey laugh like Gerard behind him. Neither of them fall over, because Frank has _no fucking weight_ to put behind any kind of tackle; Ray just wobbles a bit and Gerard stumbles backwards (which Frank counts as a victory, even though a butterfly could make Gerard lose his balance).

Ray ruffles Frank’s hair, and he _would_ normally complain that his height doesn’t mean he’s a little kid, thank you very much, but he’s still riding the high and couldn’t give a shit right now cause they’re all smiling and sweaty and even though he’s hundreds of miles away from home right now Frank feels _home_. The home of Mikey’s weird turned in feet and Gerard’s crooked smoker smile and Ray’s dripping afro and the arm round his shoulder ruffling his hair _again_ and the suggestion of some shitty bar and the mutual, wordless agreement all around.

They always used to have the habit of going to the nearest shitty bar after a show, and Frank would never turn down the fun that is just getting completely pissed with your best friends, and by the time they’d started to make a name for themselves as a band it had become practically routine. They stopped after Gerard got clean, because none of them really felt comfortable about it anymore; Mikey wasn’t comfortable drinking much at all, and neither Frank or Ray wanted to in front of Gerard – it felt wrong, somehow. Gerard would always insist it was _fine_ , he wasn’t so delicate that everyone needed to walk on eggshells around him, but they all knew it was bullshit, and Gerard had confessed to Frank a couple of times when he was feeling really low, how hard he was actually finding it, and there had been multiple times where Frank had to convince him that going back would just make it worse.

It got better eventually, though. Gerard got better and soon the temptation stopped. It never quite got back to the way it was before, because only half the band would actually be drinking, but soon Ray and Frank both started bringing beers back on stage again, and every now and then they’d all go to a bar like they used to, even though it’s still never become quite as routine as it had been before.

“Hey,” Gerard says, nudging Frank in the side, bringing him back out of his thoughts, “what did you think of the show?”

“It was _awesome_ , man,” Frank says, a subconscious smile coming back, “wasn’t the way I tackled you enough evidence for that?”

Gerard laughs, blowing smoke out in front of him in one quick burst. What the fuck, when did he start smoking and why the fuck didn’t Frank join in? “Dude, you’ll tackle me or anyone to express literally _any_ emotion.”

“Okay, yeah,” Frank says, relishing the feeling of the ever-so-slightly-colder-than-inside air hitting his still sweat-soaked skin as someone pulls open the back door and they all start walking down the street in the hopes that there’ll be some bar in whatever direction they head in. For a moderately successful band, they should at least be able to not have to walk wherever they wanna spend their evening.

Gerard must notice how Frank’s staring longingly at his cigarette, because he holds it out for Frank a moment later, and Frank sighs with relief, taking it from him and hating the way his stomach swoops when their fingers brush. So it’s not just the itch to get back to playing. That’s another thing Frank can cross off the mental list he’s been trying to make of ‘reasons he feels so fucking weird around Gerard’. He’s hoping that it’s just because he missed him, or because he’s only just gotten out of a several year long relationship. Frank can only pray that by the end of this tour everything goes back to _normal_ and he can stop worrying about what new, weird feeling he’s going to discover the next time Gerard says something or touches him or just _looks_ at him a certain way.

“I thought _I_ was supposed to be the one that always forgot my cigarettes,” Gerard says, when Frank hands it back, making sure this time not to actually touch.

“I don’t _forget_ , it’s just way easier to steal yours instead,” Frank grins, looking over at Gerard and trying to hold back his laugh when he sees the overreacting look of pure horror and betrayal, but it just comes out as a weird snort instead and Gerard ends up laughing too.

“Are you high?” Ray asks Frank, turning behind him to look at the two of them with raised eyebrows.

“Dude, I’m not twenty anymore,” Frank says, coughing a bit because he feels like he’s about to start laughing again for no decent reason.

“Dude,” Mikey mocks, turning around too and starting to walk backwards, which isn’t a good idea for anyone to try, let alone Mikey fucking Way, who could fall over even if he had, like, fucking support railings, “you’re only twenty-five.”

“You’re only twenty-six!” Frank retaliates, ignoring the way his voice goes high at the end, because he’s getting the ‘you’re the youngest of all of us’ look.

“Do you feel old or what?” Ray asks Gerard, who just sighs.

“Fucking _thirty_ , man,” Gerard says, sounding so fucking exasperated and distraught, like it’s the end of the world or something, and this sets Frank’s laughter off again.

“Oldies,” Frank says between giggles, leaning against Gerard as they walk and the weird feeling that comes rushing back is enough to calm down his laughing.

“We’re only five years older than you!” Gerard says, deliberately moving his cigarette out of Frank’s reach when he makes grabby hands for it.

“Yeah,” Frank says, “when you were graduating high school I was _thirteen_.”

“What the fuck,” Gerard says, as if he’s never thought about it before, “I’m so _old_ ,” he says, just as Mikey trips and half flies backwards, grabbing onto Ray and it not doing anything to stop his falling except maybe slow himself down a bit.

Frank’s laughter comes back in full force, and just as he thinks he might be able to take a breath and calm down, Mikey sits up with a dazed ‘where the fuck did the ground come from’ look that is _definitely_ genetic, and Frank’s completely gone, gasping for breath and using Gerard to stop from falling over himself.

“How are you _not_ high?” Ray asks, helping Mikey up, whole still looks really confused, and Frank really can’t look at him without cracking up again.

“You’re so mean,” Mikey says, pouting, and Jesus fucking _Christ_ , maybe he is actually high, somehow. Without realizing.

“You okay?” Gerard asks, rubbing Frank’s back, and when he looks up he definitely sobers up because Gerard’s looking at him in a weird mix of confusion and fondness that somehow melts Frank’s insides in a completely non-sexual way.

Frank nods, “Your brother is a hazard to himself.”

“You’re telling me,” Gerard says, and his hand is still resting on Frank’s back, except he’s stopped rubbing it and now it’s just a gentle barely-there touch on his lower back, but it feels like it’s burning a whole in Frank’s skin. It feels like there’s something in the air between them, their eyes fixed together and both of them completely frozen on the spot. It feels like something should happen, like any second all the electricity and heat in the air is going to explode between them.

“Ugh, I hate you guys,” Mikey says instead, and the feeling kind of fizzles away without the explosion that Frank’s sure Gerard was expecting too, and then his hand’s gone too, and they all go back to walking aimlessly in the hopes of finding a bar. 

***

They find a bar eventually, and Frank really wishes any of them had actually been smart enough to ask someone else for a lift because the place is already got a bunch of people working the tour, any of which probably wouldn’t have minded giving four guys a lift, but now all Frank can hope for is that someone’s still here by the time they leave that’s willing to drive them back to where all the buses are parked.

They all get their various drinks, and before Frank’s knows it he’s sat across from Gerard, listening to him rambling on about some movie Frank can’t remember the name of, and he really _should_ pay attention, and does genuinely care about Gerard’s opinion, but when Gerard has an in-depth, hour-long-explanation worthy opinion on _everything_ , it’s hard to always keep track of what he’s saying. Even though he’s barely processing anything Gerard’s saying, he still can’t stop staring at him. It’s not like he never noticed Gerard was pretty and he’s suddenly had some cliché epiphany that his best friend is actually gorgeous; he had been attracted to him ever since they first met, but it feels like it was never such an _immediate_ thing before. He only recognised that Gerard was pretty, now it’s like everything Gerard does, Frank can only think about how amazing he looks doing it.

“Frankie?” Gerard asks, waving his hand around in front of Frank’s face, looking at him with wide eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Frank says, blinking a couple times, “why wouldn’t I be?”

“You looked kinda out of it. And you were staring.”

 _Definitely weren’t thinking about how attracted I am to you_ , Frank thinks. But fuck, he’s still so aware of it when Gerard shakes his hair out of his face and chews on his lip, frowning at Frank. “You’re pretty,” Frank says, like a fucking infatuated teenager, and they’d say things like that to each other all the time, but now it felt _romantic_ , and it wasn’t just friendly or sexual.

“Oh,” Gerard says, flushing bright red and ducking his head, avoiding Frank’s eyes, losing track of whatever he’d been saying before and just looking at Frank with a weird, thoughtful look whenever he tried to say something that completely put Frank off. Gerard goes off eventually, making some excuse and Frank hates himself for being stupid and saying something that _should_ be fine, at least for their kind of friendship, anyway; but instead just left something weird between them that Frank doesn’t want to start to overthink, so he goes over to the bar and sits down next to Dewees, ignoring the wave of jealousy he feels when he sees Gerard talking to some chic from one of the other bands they met a couple years back.

“Would it be weird to bring up the end of the tour already only after the first show?” James asks when Frank sits down.

“What, are you that fed up with this band already?” Frank says, smiling sideways at him, thankful for a distraction from Gerard.

“You better hope not,” he says, “otherwise who’s gonna play the best part of any of your songs.”

“ _I’m_ the best part of _all_ the songs.”

“Mmhm,” James hums, like a sarcastic ass, laughing at the face Frank pulls, “so after we finish this tour and the black parade tour you better promise not to go into another ‘I just wanna do nothing’ hibernation.”

“Who _doesn’t_ want to go into hibernation after a tour? It’s a perfectly acceptable thing to want; tours are _tiring_ ,” Frank argues, because he’s not even that _bad._  Sure, he won’t go out for a week or two after tours and sometimes he’ll give up on doing any kind of work for the next month, but he’s not _Gerard_.

“You’re such an old man,” James says, rolling his eyes.

“I’m not even thirty!” Frank says, _not even close_ , he thinks, ignoring how he’s already argued both sides of this argument in less than two hours.

“Okay,” James agrees, because he’s six years older than him and fucking _knows_ Frank will argue his ass off if he tries to call Frank old. He’s done it before and he’ll do it again. “You’ve been spending way too much time around Gerard, then.”

Frank sighs. He’s not gonna argue, because he probably has, but he’s also not been spending anywhere near enough time with Gerard, in his opinion. He searches the room for Gerard before he even thinks about it, spotting him in some corner _still_ talking to that girl and looking so happy that it gives Frank horrible mixed feelings of disgusting jealousy and ‘I’m a terrible friend for not wanting my friend to be happy’.

James follows his line of vision, and Frank can tell he knows he’s looking at Gerard, “Dude,” he says, “what’s with the tortured Shakespearean sigh?”

“How the fuck can a sigh be Shakespearean?” Frank asks, totally _totally_ not avoiding the question, but he just earns a vague hand flap in his direction.

“Is shit going on between you and Gerard?” James asks, the persistent motherfucker.

“No,” Frank says immediately, “shit’s going on with me and it just so happens that it’s all about Gerard.”

“Isn’t that pretty much the same thing?”

“He doesn’t exactly _know_ about it, though.”

“Do I wanna know?” James asks, giving Frank a concerned look that Frank really doesn’t wanna see because it means he’s even more hopeless.

“Well, I don’t wanna talk about it, so you don’t have a choice,” Frank says, apologizing straight away for sounding like a dick, but James just waves him off, handing his beer to him, which means he’s figured out enough of what's going on.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “Gerard knows what’s good for him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Frank asks.

James just shrugs, the cryptic fucker, and Frank sighs again, downing the rest of his beer in one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an fyi I'm literally a comment whore if you leave a comment you'll receive my undying love.


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